Whatever Happened In The Case Of The Lost iPhone 4S Prototype?

The San Francisco tequila lounge where Apple reportedly lost an iPhone 4S prototype.

Remember way back last year, when some poor soul of an Apple employee reportedly lost a prototype iPhone 4S that he was testing out in a San Francisco tequila joint?

A great deal of controversy surrounded the case after it came out that Apple employees had reportedly posed as police officers when they investigated the property to which they’d tracked the lost iPhone. Afterwards, the owner of the house, Sergio Calderón, threatened to sue over the incident, and even hired a lawyer who tried (and apparently failed) to negotiate the case with Apple.

It looks, though, like Apple eventually settled after all… and possibly fired the director of security who was responsible for the raid over it.

Network World followed up with the lawyer in the case, David Monroe, to find out what was going on with the lawsuit. The response was a comic repetition of the phrase ‘no comment':

Having heard nothing more in the subsequent four months, I called Monroe yesterday and asked if he could update me on the status of that lawsuit.

“I have no comment about that,” he replied.

I asked if there had been a settlement between Apple and his client, Sergio Calderone.

“I have no comment about that.”

I mentioned the bit about him saying in December that a lawsuit was then imminent – within a few weeks — and asked what had changed since then.

“I have no comment about that.”

I was about to try a fourth round but by then we were both chuckling over the futility of the exercise.

Apple has refused to comment as well, but MacRumors says that the head of global security at the time, John Theriault, left Apple in November, reportedly due to the way he botched the iPhone investigation.

Connecting the dots, it seems now like Theriault may well have authorized his employees to pose as police officers when they investigated the house where the iPhone was lost. He was then fired over the debacle when it came to light, and Apple settled the lawsuit with Calderón to make the problem go away. We’ll probably never know what really happened, but the whole thing seems a little seedy, don’t you think?

About the author:

John Brownlee is a Contributing Editor. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.

InternDom

typo: ” Apple employee reportedly ost another ” lost instead?

technochick

What’s seedy is you failing to point out that none of this was ever proven, starting with the basic detail of proving anyone from Apple was at that bar that night at all. Then what was said to the police, to Calderon etc. local press from that area pointed out the lack of evidence at the time as well as how many details didn’t add up correctly.